Mr Shaker Aamer

Debate between David T C Davies and David Nuttall

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[David T. C. Davies]

There are certainly a lot of facts that have yet to come out, and I might refer to a few in a minute. I will first address the statement by the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), in 2010. He made a couple of points setting out why he would make large payments to the previous Guantanamo Bay inmates who returned to the UK.

I will not try to read it out but, in summary, the former Lord Chancellor said that the Gibson inquiry would not be able to begin until the claims had been resolved. My first question is: why not? I do not see why outstanding claims should prevent an inquiry from being set up. In any case, the Gibson inquiry subsequently ended because apparently nobody was satisfied that it would be impartial. There is no Gibson inquiry now, so that particular problem will not occur in the case of Mr Aamer.

My right hon. and learned Friend’s second point was that he felt there was absolutely no admission of culpability in any of the matters to which my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) has just referred. If we, as a Government or as a country, are not culpable of any misdeeds in these people’s cases, why on earth are we not saying so and fighting the court cases? If there is any culpability, it certainly does not lie with any Minister of this Government or the previous coalition Government; the blame will rest with someone else—so maybe someone else, and not the British taxpayer, should be held accountable.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling speech. What does he think the families of the brave members of our armed forces who lost their lives in Afghanistan will think about this news?

[David T. C. Davies]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which I will come to in a minute because there are three families in that position in Monmouthshire.

The then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe, made the point that the cost of fighting a court case was

“estimated at approximately £30 million to £50 million over three to five years of litigation.”—[Official Report, 16 November 2010; Vol. 518, c. 753.]

That is a very high figure, and I find it hard to believe, but I am not a legal man. In any event, if we are right then we should fight these cases. We should not simply have a situation where people can pitch up and say, “I’m going to sue the Government for £1 million and it will cost you more than that to defend the case, so you’ll have to give me the money.” This Government should be a Government of principles and if we believe that we are in the right, we should fight these cases and not simply hand out cheques to people.